


The Grove

by warriorpoet



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 10:19:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorpoet/pseuds/warriorpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Skyler meeting Lydia might have gone if it had happened sooner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Grove

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sylvestris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvestris/gifts).



Skyler hesitated in the doorway of The Grove, scanning the sparse Tuesday morning brunch crowd.

Walt had told her that she was looking for a woman, Lydia, no last name offered and Skyler didn't ask. Professional-looking, dark hair. Probably at a table by the wall of windows. Possibly wearing large, dark sunglasses.

She spotted the only likely candidate right where Walt said she'd be sitting. Tailored dark gray jacket, hair in a French twist. No sunglasses, but it was a rare overcast day, the sunlight diffuse and easy on the eyes.

Skyler took a deep breath and walked quickly over to the table. "Lydia?" she asked.

Confusion creased the woman's brow. "I'm sorry, are – "

"I am a... a business associate of Walter White. I believe he told you I'd be meeting you today?"

"He said he'd be sending someone else, but I didn't expect – " she shook her head quickly and glanced around the room. "Sit. You should order something."

Skyler slid into the seat across from her, smoothing her skirt over her knees. A burning nausea chewed away at her insides. "No, I'm fine."

"Please," Lydia said. "This will look better if you order something."

She sounded nervous, and Skyler worried. Walt told her she'd be picking up money, nothing more. That she should think of it as just getting to the money one step sooner. Cutting out Walt as the middleman delivering it to the car wash, hidden behind walls of soda cans. Nothing more dangerous than what she did already. Just this once.

Skyler had said fine, she'd do it; she didn't want to know the details, would do what he needed but didn't want to receive instructions from him. Didn't want to start making it a habit, the expansion of her role in this thing.

But now, this woman's nervous tone, her pleas for Skyler to project an appearance of normalcy, two women meeting for brunch in a restaurant, made her worry. Who was watching? Who did it have to look better to?

"Fine," Skyler said, and scanned the menu without seeing a thing. 

A cheerful waiter appeared and Skyler continued staring blankly at the menu as Lydia ordered. The specificity of her request, her insistence on pointing out that she wanted _soy_ milk, that last time there had been a mistake and she would be _deeply_ disappointed if it were to be repeated since she was such a loyal customer... it reminded Skyler of Marie, the way she'd make a million substitutions on anything she ordered, polite but insistent, and very particular. Annoying as hell when you were in the wrong mood, but never done in a way that was malicious or outright rude. 

It bothered Skyler that she suddenly associated this woman with her sister. This woman with her expensive clothes and stash of drug money. The words on the menu blurred into a mess of incomprehensible black swirls.

"And my friend here will have..."

Skyler looked up and Lydia nodded at her slightly as if to say, _play along, we're friends_. Skyler smiled up at the waiter.

"Just black coffee. Thank you."

She handed the menu back and an uncomfortable silence clung to the table. Skyler was unsure what the next part of the script was supposed to be.

"So, how does this go?" Skyler asked.

"There's a wicker bag at my feet. I'll push it across to you before I leave, then you pick it up when you go. That's it. Simple."

"If that's all this involves, then why the need to carry on this performance?"

"Appearances are important," Lydia said leaning forward and lowering her voice. "If you're going to hide in plain sight, you need to keep the appearance up. And... if you don't mind me saying, you don't seem to be like Walter's other business associates. You seem like someone who would know how important appearances are to selling a life like this."

It was a perfectly acceptable explanation. It was, after all, the reason Skyler had insisted on the car wash over that completely inexplicable laser tag place. But even so, the way Lydia assumed things about Skyler made her edgy, irritated. _She_ wasn't like Walter's other business associates? Well. This woman wasn't exactly a Jesse Pinkman, either.

The gnawing in her gut morphed from anxiety to curiosity. How much did Lydia know? What, exactly, was her part in this?

Skyler narrowed her eyes. "I'm not like you," she said.

Lydia scoffed at that, but any further response was interrupted by the waiter returning with their drinks. Lydia drank slowly, her eyes fluttering closed, and for the first time Skyler noticed her neatly manicured nails, painted in almost the exact same shade of dark red as Skyler's

Skyler folded her hands in her lap, under the table. The tea cup clinked softly as Lydia set it down.

"Like it or not, you _do_ have something to hide, don't you? I don't imagine that the reason we're both here is something that you talk about in mixed company?"

"It wasn't my choice."

"Everyone makes choices, Ms. White."

Skyler was taken aback at that, that this woman knew who she was. Her face must have betrayed her surprise, because Lydia nodded to herself with a satisfied smile.

"That's what I thought." She sipped her tea again and leaned in to Skyler. "Everyone makes choices. The choices can be difficult when all of the options are equally unappealing. But everyone makes choices. Standing by them is what gives them merit."

"Did my husband tell you to talk to me? To give me this speech? Is that why I'm here?"

"I have no idea why you're here. All he told me is that he was unable to make the pickup himself and he wanted to send someone he trusts – that would be you, and, believe me, I was not expecting _you_ – in his place rather than reschedule."

"He said there was a manufacturing issue, he – he couldn't get away... I don't know, exactly..." Skyler couldn't be sure whether it was bullshit or not, whether she was there as a matter of necessity or as a matter of Walt's whims. Why her? Why her and not Pinkman, or whoever this new person was that Walt had mentioned working with? Surely they must be able to be trusted with the money? If not out of duty or loyalty to Walt, then out of simple fear of him?

The gnawing moved to her head, a tight ache behind her eyes. She rubbed her temples, then remembered to hide her fingers, ridiculously self-conscious about the nail polish. She curled her nails into her palm, set her hand back in her lap.

"What is it that you do, Lydia?" Skyler asked.

She huffed a quick, shallow laugh. "Our mutual associate may trust you, and I'm sure he has good reason to, obviously, but... I don't know you. You understand, I have to be cautious, I don't know what you know, or how involved, exactly, you are – "

Skyler silenced her with a raised hand. "Fine. The details aren't necessary." She took a deep breath. "But I am right in guessing that you don't just _bring_ the money. You're responsible for where it comes from. Would that be right?"

Lydia hesitated, then, haltingly murmured, "That's – that would be fair to say, yes. Yes."

"So you're a drug dealer, too. And you chose to do that."

Although Skyler's voice was low, well below a normal conversational level, Lydia looked around the restaurant, startled and embarrassed, as though Skyler had been shouting it to the back of the room, making a scene. 

"A – a – no. No, that isn't at _all_ – you're simplifying – you're _diminishing_ – a very complex process – it's like you're equating me with some kind of street thug. This is not _all that I do_ – "

"I'm not talking about what my husband manufactures. I'm talking about the money. You're the one who gets him the money."

"I'm doing my job."

"Did you know that last week I had to rent a storage unit? For the money? There's too much of it to handle. I don't think Walt even has any idea. He just has a compulsive need to keep accumulating it. And for what?" Skyler leaned forward, extending her leg under the table until her foot bumped the wicker bag, pushing it against the toe of Lydia's shoe. 

Lydia backed up a little, edging away from the table. Skyler lowered her voice to draw her back in.

"Why do you do it?" she asked.

Lydia's gaze flitted around the room again, as though she were scanning for the exits, before coming to rest solidly on Skyler. "Because I'm good at my job."

Skyler sipped her coffee as Lydia watched her closely. If Lydia had noticed they had the same nail polish, it didn't register in her expression, and Skyler felt a flash of annoyance with herself for having been self-conscious over something so trivial and coincidental. 

"Do you have children, Lydia?" Skyler asked as she set the mug down.

"One. A daughter."

Skyler gave her a thin smile. "That's nice. I have a daughter. A son as well. They're not living with us at the moment. Because I'm afraid to have them in the same house as Walt. Walt and me. Because you're right. I made choices. They were the wrong ones. But I'm too far in it now. And I don't know how to keep my children safe anymore."

Saying it out loud to someone who knew what she was talking about was a relief. But Lydia looked increasingly uncomfortable, scanning the restaurant again, focusing intently on lifting her cup to her mouth and back to the table, neatly blotting her lips with a napkin. 

Skyler tried to engage her again. "Have you ever been afraid for your daughter's life because of what you do?"

"Yes," Lydia said, a barely audible breath.

"So how do you keep doing it? How do those two parts of your life fit together?"

"Are you trying to get me to discontinue my business with your husband by questioning my parenting skills? You don't know the first thing about me – "

"That's not what I'm doing. I'm asking for advice." Skyler shrugged. "I think that's why Walt wanted me here. He wanted me to talk to you, to see you as an example of a... a normal person with a family who was involved in something like what we do."

"I don't – I don't know. I don't know what I can say to you. Getting involved in people's personal affairs is _not_ why I'm here." Lydia sipped her tea again and reached for her sunglasses when she set the cup down. 

Skyler felt the bag push up against her leg.

"I have a flight to catch," Lydia said. She darted one last glance at Skyler before looking away and adding, "You make yourself necessary. That's how you stay safe. That's how you keep your children safe. Stay necessary." Lydia put a few bills on the table and slipped out of her seat. "It was nice meeting you," she said, and then she was walking quickly away.

Skyler didn't turn to watch her go. She finished her coffee and wondered what it would take for Walt to see Lydia as unnecessary. For the money to not matter anymore. She wondered if Lydia was in a position to be a threat. If Walt would someday want to do to her what he did to Gus Fring.

Maybe that's why Walt had wanted her here. To see the kind of people they were working with. That someone like Lydia wasn't a threat. She was a mother. She dressed well, drank chamomile tea, had a fondness for the same dark red nail polish as Skyler. There was no danger in their money coming from her. It was safe to bring the children home.

Skyler didn't buy that for one second.

She picked up the wicker bag from the floor and headed for the door. Stay necessary. What was more necessary than being the connection to Walt's money?

Maybe she could expand her role. Maybe she could make the pickups from now on.

Maybe Lydia had some more words of wisdom on how to survive this business.


End file.
